Another hour down the road, and another hour of desert flora. I am surprised at how green the landscape is here. I wonder what it looks like in August. We turn a corner and catch a glimpse of the northern most oasis in Baja; San Ignacio. The moment I set my eyes on this town, I knew I would want to come back again someday and stay for a while. The date palm trees are so thick here, it feels like a jungle. The town square of San Ignacio has the historical Mision on one side and small shops and restaurants on the remaining three sides. In the middle stands a beautiful square with stone walkways, and planters.
From our short stay here, I can see that the town square really is the center of town life. We see kids playing, teens hanging out listening to music, women and men gathered in their respective groups visiting. A majority of the stores and shops in town open toward the town square.
We stayed the night here and awoke early the next morning to take a walk. The air held so much water it was difficult to see beyond a few buildings. As we walked, I could feel the moisture on my face. Some of the locals were already up and working – preparing for the day. The tourists were all still in bed. We talked with a few people and everyone we spoke with had a few common threads to their life story.
- They had lived there for all of their life.
- They enjoy it here. It is “Mas Tranquile”
- There whole family lives here too.
We also discovered that everyone here seems to know everyone else. There is poverty here, as you see everywhere in Mexico, but the town seems to lack the crime we have seen in so many other areas. I don’t see graffiti here, and I didn’t notice bars on the windows. Walking home from dinner, in the dark, I felt completely safe.
As the sun drew higher in the sky, the moisture dried up and the desert blue sky emerged once again. We decided to find out if the whales have arrived yet. The town of San Ignacio is about 60 kilometers away from the San Ignacio Lagoon. This lagoon is one of the destinations for the grey whale during birthing season. They flock here during the months of January, February, and March. The pregnant females lead the way – to prepare for and give birth. Later, the males and “single” females arrive – to mate.
The transpenicular highway has been a pretty good road so far. We have been able to make pretty good time. Even though we knew that the road out to the San Ignacio Lagoon was a dirt road, we didn’t figure the drive to the lagoon would take any longer then 45 minutes. Boy, were we mistaken! This road was really only a road because there were no cacti growing in the path. Other then that, I don’t believe any work was done to “make” the road. It was a slow, bumpy, gut-bouncy ride. Had we not paid for a whale watching tour, we may have turned around and headed back to Guerro Negro to see the whales! One of my traveling companions worried that we would be consumed alive by the middle-of-no-where-desert. It is true that as far as you could see in all directions – where was nothing but desert. We appeared to be the only humans for many miles. In the end, we made it to the lagoon, and I am so glad we did.
Antonio and his family were to be our guides for the day. Antonio has lived out on the lagoon for more then 30 years. I grew up in San Ignacio and headed out to the lagoon as a young man. There, he met is future wife, and settled into a life of fishing and whale watching. He and 2 of his children run the family business today. Antonio’s son took us out into the lagoon on our little dingy of a boat.
More on the whale adventure soon!
